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Myth, Cultural Identity, and Ethnopolitics: Samoa and the Tongan "Empire"

2002; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 58; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/jar.58.4.3630677

2153-3806

Jeannette Marie Mageo,

Asian Studies and History

This article argues that cultural identity models not only are models of a group--a kind of group self-image--but also predicate models for a shared political way of being in the world, that is, for a political praxis. I present a processual form of structural analysis for mapping the meaning transformations through which people think about cultural identity in myth. Cultural identity is conceived in contrast and comparison to other cultures; therefore, myths render intercultural relations from a local viewpoint and are useful in constructing an interactive perspective on regional history. These ideas are presented via Samoan myths that were told to Western scribes during the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, when Samoans were resisting foreign colonials and developing a new sense of cultural identity. They concern a central puzzle of Polynesian prehistory--the nature of the so-called Tongan empire.